"Dynamic DNS providers are popular because they allow people to obtain a free subdomain"

And therein lies the risk for No-IP. ZoneEdit does not offer free subdomains; You have to delegate your own domain but can then manage the DNS for free including dynamic DNS. Others offer the same service but open themselves up to abuse by offering free subdomains as well.

Free DNS is a hazardous market to be in. There is no end to the list of those who would abuse it. The paying users end up subsidizing the free use, too, which comprises the vast majority of the service's platform and bandwidth. To keep your service safe from this kind of thing you almost have no choice bu tto pay for service with an outfit that does not offer free service at all. That's no guarantee but it will be a lot more stable.

"Dynamic DNS providers are popular because they allow people to obtain a free subdomain"

And therein lies the risk for No-IP. ZoneEdit does not offer free subdomains; You have to delegate your own domain but can then manage the DNS for free including dynamic DNS. Others offer the same service but open themselves up to abuse by offering free subdomains as well.

Free DNS is a hazardous market to be in. There is no end to the list of those who would abuse it. The paying users end up subsidizing the free use, too, which comprises the vast majority of the service's platform and bandwidth. To keep your service safe from this kind of thing you almost have no choice bu tto pay for service with an outfit that does not offer free service at all. That's no guarantee but it will be a lot more stable.

Free email is also subject to massive abuse, as Microsoft's Hotmail service has demonstrated for years.

This is outrageous action by Microsoft. Not contacting the company involved is unbelievable. I hope No-IP finds a way to sue them for millions.

I only recently stopped using no-ip when my ISP allocated a fixed ip. until then it was absolutely necessary so I could mange my server firewall. Without a dynamic DNS IP address I could easily have locked myself out of my own server.

I am totally astounded at this action and wonder what BS Microsoft told the judge to get the court order approved. I doubt much of it was factual.

How is this even legal? How can a big ass corporation come in and steal things from me by court order? Can MS do this to Google? Google indexes plenty of malware and other illegal content. Can Apple do this to MS, I'm sure plenty of MS services host malware at some level. Azure is probably slapped full. Once you go down this road, it becomes a shit storm real fast.

It would be great if someone actually published what those 22 domains were. No-IP offers you a range of them to pick from when setting up your DDNS service and it isn't clear to me if 22 means all of them, or some subset of them.

Microsoft seized 22 domain names it said were being abused in malware-related crimes against Windows users.

Is there a list of these 22 domain names? I couldn't find it in a quick glance through the links in the articles.I use zapto.org via NO-IP. I'm still being redirected to the right place so that must not be one of them.

"Dynamic DNS providers are popular because they allow people to obtain a free subdomain"

And therein lies the risk for No-IP. ZoneEdit does not offer free subdomains; You have to delegate your own domain but can then manage the DNS for free including dynamic DNS. Others offer the same service but open themselves up to abuse by offering free subdomains as well.

Free DNS is a hazardous market to be in. There is no end to the list of those who would abuse it. The paying users end up subsidizing the free use, too, which comprises the vast majority of the service's platform and bandwidth. To keep your service safe from this kind of thing you almost have no choice bu tto pay for service with an outfit that does not offer free service at all. That's no guarantee but it will be a lot more stable.

Free email is also subject to massive abuse, as Microsoft's Hotmail service has demonstrated for years.

Microsoft seized 22 domain names it said were being abused in malware-related crimes against Windows users.

Is there a list of these 22 domain names? I couldn't find it in a quick glance through the links in the articles.I use zapto.org via NO-IP. I'm still being redirected to the right place so that must not be one of them.

Microsoft DCU is insisting they're only blocking "illegal" sites and allowing the rest to resolve, but if so, my home pictures must have been illegal...

I am very curious about the legality of this move as well. I could understand a government entity seizing the domains, but how the heck is Microsoft entitled to seize them. Especially if there isn't some kind of criminal complaint being leveled against No-IP itself.

Yeah, all those people who had somebody setup their business or home surveillance systems using this service should just apply the "easy fix" of "switch[ing] to another service" in order to be able to use their devices. Nevermind the fact that the DVR boxes that their cameras are connected to might not have any other choices for the DDNS provider.

Not everybody uses technology as a toy. Some people need rely on things to work but don't have the resources to build a whole infrastructure around it to make it work, so they use services like these.

I'm wondering if Microsoft really did this without warning or if No-IP is just saying they did to get them the negative PR?

This seems like the type of stuff to get a company sued for a few hundred million dollars. I kind of significantly doubt that Microsoft did/instigated this without good reason simply because it'd cost them significantly if they had.

Yeah, all those people who had somebody setup their business or home surveillance systems using this service should just apply the "easy fix" of "switch[ing] to another service" in order to be able to use their devices. Nevermind the fact that the DVR boxes that their cameras are connected to might not have any other choices for the DDNS provider.

Not everybody uses technology as a toy. Some people need rely on things to work but don't have the resources to build a whole infrastructure around it to make it work, so they use services like these.

Even if you have another option, if you can't login to make the change because the domain name doesn't resolve…

I'm wondering if Microsoft really did this without warning or if No-IP is just saying they did to get them the negative PR?

This seems like the type of stuff to get a company sued for a few hundred million dollars. I kind of significantly doubt that Microsoft did/instigated this without good reason simply because it'd cost them significantly if they had.

Yes, Microsoft filed the case last night under seal and still has not served No-IP with notice of the lawsuit. You can see the documents at http://www.noticeoflawsuit.com/ where apparently Microsoft believes that they will be the first organization to ever be allowed to serve legal notice by posting it on a random web URL.

A year or two ago we (wonderproxy.com) lost one of our servers when Microsoft & the FBI walked into a datacenter and walked out with a few racks of servers as part of a botnet shutdown. If memory serves Ars even reported on it happily. This was in Tallinn if memory serves.

I've got a lot of sympathy for people caught in the cross fire in these efforts. There's a lot of good being done, but when it comes to these efforts they're erring on the side of grabbing more to ensure they've got everything.

A year or two ago we (wonderproxy.com) lost one of our servers when Microsoft & the FBI walked into a datacenter and walked out with a few racks of servers as part of a botnet shutdown. If memory serves Ars even reported on it happily. This was in Tallinn if memory serves.

I've got a lot of sympathy for people caught in the cross fire in these efforts. There's a lot of good being done, but when it comes to these efforts they're erring on the side of grabbing more to ensure they've got everything.

I'm wondering if Microsoft really did this without warning or if No-IP is just saying they did to get them the negative PR?

This seems like the type of stuff to get a company sued for a few hundred million dollars. I kind of significantly doubt that Microsoft did/instigated this without good reason simply because it'd cost them significantly if they had.

I doubt they can sue Microsoft, they should be able to sue the court/state for acting irrational on false facts, right?Because the court granted Microsoft the right to seizure.

If this issue had been known previously (as suggested on OpenDNS and Cisco blogs) then No-IP should have been working to clean it up, but it sounds like they did nothing. I think people should be criticizing them for inaction a lot more than criticizing MS for overaction (as long as they resolve the DNS issues promptly).

If you read the full complaint, there's an entire section (paragraphs 32-36) headlined Defendant Vitalwerks Is on Notice of the Dynamic DNS Abuse and Has Failed to Take Corrective Action wherein Microsoft acknowledges that No-IP does have an anti-abuse policy, but that they're not responsive and that they failed to follow the recommendations that Microsoft and Cisco had put forth earlier in the year. This would seem to contradict No-IP's claim that this was entirely out of the blue.

Totally screws me over. I am 1,500 miles away from home server and now I don't know what its IP address is because ISP keeps changing it. I've lost access to my HVAC control, security system, lighting, etc.

"Dynamic DNS providers are popular because they allow people to obtain a free subdomain"

And therein lies the risk for No-IP. ZoneEdit does not offer free subdomains; You have to delegate your own domain but can then manage the DNS for free including dynamic DNS. Others offer the same service but open themselves up to abuse by offering free subdomains as well.

Free DNS is a hazardous market to be in. There is no end to the list of those who would abuse it. The paying users end up subsidizing the free use, too, which comprises the vast majority of the service's platform and bandwidth. To keep your service safe from this kind of thing you almost have no choice bu tto pay for service with an outfit that does not offer free service at all. That's no guarantee but it will be a lot more stable.

Free email is also subject to massive abuse, as Microsoft's Hotmail service has demonstrated for years.

But they (and Google, Yahoo, et al.) took action to block abuse. This is why these days, e-mail malware are not actually sent from Hotmail or Gmail (most are spoofed). According to the complaint, Microsoft has been trying for over a year to get No-IP to do more, including specific recommendations on measures that they can take, and all that No-IP has done is give lip-service to the issue.

Microsoft's move may be heavy-handed, but No-IP is definitely not a saint, either.